


Relative Stability

by archaicGambit



Series: AlphaRose-Collected Drabble/Stories [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:25:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archaicGambit/pseuds/archaicGambit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're trying to make sense of 3 different realities in your head, feeling stable can be an issue. Rose Lalonde is a gifted Seer whether or not she wants to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relative Stability

Some days, you feel ancient.

When it rains for weeks at a time and you stand out on the walkway to the observatory and let yourself be soaked, you feel as old as the water, remade and reformed over centuries but there since the dawn of time, if such a point even existed.  _They_ told you a long time ago that thinking linearly would only make things difficult in your communications and in your Seeing. You told them thinking linearly was the only thing that helped you.

They exist in a plane different than your corporeal existence across all of time, and sometimes you wonder what it would be like to live like that.

Sometimes you feel you do. You feel disjointed, and you know you’ve lived another life. You See it constantly. You wonder how many more were behind it that you’ve forgotten.

The Rose who came before you, as you tend to think of her, didn’t seem to live past the age of thirteen. You dream about the mother you had in her life, the one who had real use for the Observatory of Rainbow Falls and cleaned passive-aggressively. You clean when you’re angry too. You wonder if it’s because you want to be like the mother you never had or it’s some sort of subconscious trait.  In many of the dreams, Other Rose fights with her mother. You want to punch Other Rose in the face because you would’ve loved a mother, a figure to look up to, anyone who tried to understand you and give you what you needed the same way the Mom in your dreams did.  The dreams about your house and the mother you never had are frustrating, but they’re much easier to understand than the ones that come when Other Rose is an adolescent.

Sometimes, you are with Dave. Very rarely, you dream of being in a bastardized version of his Texas apartment and sometimes you merely hear his voice speaking to you through a computer, but either way you are surrounded by fire. In this dream, he leaves you to become some sort of orange angel. He dies in very many ways and you cannot ever help him.

 Usually, you share a beautiful obsidian city with black-shelled carapaces and elaborate gothic architecture. The Dark Gods are there too, and they speak to you. In this world, you are on much less friendly terms.  You’re mad at them for reasons you can never quite see. Maybe it’s the reasons you’re mad at for them now but you don’t think so. In the obsidian city they hold a lot more influence over your life, and they call you their pilot as well as their seer.

So far as you can tell the end of Other Rose’s life is when she takes Dave’s hand under a harsh green light. There’s a rabbit there too and which is the one detail you can never understand. You do know that the Gods had chosen and marked you but he came along anyways, in that strange world, because he didn’t want you to be alone. He’s more good to you than you could ever deserve. The feeling of your cold, sweaty hands clinging to each other like you are the last things in existence is vivid to you when you close your eyes. The memory of that fear is always fresh in your veins.

You can also still remember when you first saw his face, at least- this version: you are browsing the internet to avoid working on homework or the first book in your soon to be bestselling series (About a year and a half to go at that point). Entertainment articles on the front page of GoogleNews have no interest to you but the photo next to ‘EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE COMEDY MAKES A JPEG STAR OUT OF DIRECTOR DAVE STRIDER.’ You click on the photo and see the purple-clad boy from your dreams all grown up and wearing an aggressive shade of red.

He’s smirking in the photo, like an ass. He wears a red suit jacket, dark grey shirt and white tie. You privately not that _damn he looks good_ and don’t dismiss it because you’re allowed to privately denote the relative attractiveness of strangers in passing, and if you didn’t have this feeling, this strange connection, you would write him up as some other Hollywood hotshot unworthy of your attention. While working on your English degree, film that isn’t black and white or foreign seems to be a waste of your time.

You read the article, and find yourself confused. Dave Strider is a college dropout, only a day older than you. His viral comic strip encouraged a film company to ask him if he was interested in making a proper moivie. Somehow, the smug douchebag was able to get Ben Stiller and Donald Glover in his cast. Something in his smirk bothers you, as though he’s mocking you with his success and his arm around a busty latino girl: one of three to play the Foxy Slunt: the only female role in the whole film. He is described as a charming womanizer, and a playboy. This leads you to gag slightly.

The article goes on to commend his genius and predict the growing success of SBAHJ and its sequels: four are already lined up. It then goes onto discuss his cult following online.

You close your computer and think for a moment. The boy from your dreams is real and wildly famous. He is certainly not what you expected- you didn't think he'd grow to be this.

You think about your other visions, and realize that this is a great bout of luck.

When you don’t dream of Other Rose you dream of what could possibly be the future, or what already has been the future, if you want to take a guess as to what it’s like from the Eldritch God’s point of view.

Most of your future visions are anything but pretty. You see starvation and obesity, rivers flooded with putrid soda. You dream about mobs of juggaloos standing with guns outside an apartment you don’t know but you’re worried so badly for whoever the sole occupant is. You see destruction and death in the multitudes, and a terrifying woman whose lips part to reveal shark-like teeth when she smiles. She stands over you, proud and victorious.

If this is what the world is coming to, if Skaianet is correct, if you are correct, than the world needs someone to lead a rebellion. Dave Strider seems like the perfect man to do it. He already has a massive base, but if you could be the one to aim and hone their goals towards something constructive, the pair of you could be brilliant.

Sitting with your closed computer, you shake your head and remind yourself that you do not actually _know_ this man, and he does not know you exist. He is not your knight from your dreams come to save you from your hellish existence. He’s a boy who got famous on the internet and profited. You are a college student who sometimes guesses natural disasters correctly and has voices in her head that she uses as inspiration in a shitty wizard novel. Neither of you are fit to lead a revolution.

Later, you are proven wrong. This happens very rarely, and you’re happy when it does.

Sometimes you get these little glimmers of hope. A few years after you meet Dave properly you start dreaming about a little girl in the house you just bought with amethyst eyes and curly blonde hair and you just know that she’s yours.  You soon realize from the strange, carpace people surrounding her and the altered state of the world around Rainbow Falls that she is several hundred years away from you.

You realize this at a time that Dave isn’t around, so that night you drink yourself into the void and try to feel close to the mother that was never yours and the daughter you’ll never bear.

When you drink you sink into a void and it feels so nice to be empty, to be the only Rose in your crowded head and she’s barely there at all. It feels like peace when you black out and there is blissful silence. No harsh whispers of ancient monsters. No visions of the bleak future. Just you, existing properly in one fucking reality. Drinking makes the shadows in the corners of your vision disappear and manifest in the shadows under your eyes. The next morning you barely make it to the bathroom to vomit in the tub rather than the toilet.

You crawl out of your basement and call him, to tell him you slipped up again. He’s in LA and it’s still night-time for him but he answers on the second ring.

You sit on the floor where you found your purse, leaning up against the back of the couch. His voice is groggy. He asks how you are and when you don’t reply he mumbles out concern and confusion but it’s just nice to hear his voice and remember that he’s real and you’re real and he cares about you. You manage to tell him you were upset about something you Saw but not what it was. You’re pretty sure telling him about either of the children you’ve seen would make him run.

He sounds frightened and confused on the other end of the line. You tell him you’re going to make tea and you just wanted to talk to him but you forgot the time difference and you’re really sorry for waking him up. You say “I love you,” a few times before hanging up and slump at the barstool at your kitchen, remembering being slumped at actual bars.

Your cat walks down the slatted stairs with his bell ringing round his collar.  You decide to actually make tea and enjoy the quiet, just breathe it in. Your head is still silent, and you boil water as your cat weaves between your legs, leaving black fur on pale skin.

You remember Dave’s voice and you breathe in cool morning air and try to remind yourself that of all the Roses that could have existed, you managed to. You aren’t a Rose in a vision, you’re the Rose having them, so at least you’ve gotten that far.  You are just as real as anyone in this world, so long as it continues to exist.

You pour your tea into a garish SBAHJ themed mug- it changes comic scenes when you pour hot water in and it’s so stupid looking and bright in your dark front room but damn you love that mug.

You don’t need to be stable to be real.

**Author's Note:**

> More drabbely stuff.  
> I thought I might want to make this into another chapter of the other one, but they're not entirely related?  
> Also proofreading is for chumps but not actually. (I didn't proofread but if you see any glaring errors than please inform me.)  
> Since Rose is an alcoholic in the Beta universe, I think it'd be pretty easy for her to be that way in the Alpha. I'm working on another thing about her and alcohol that may or may not ever be completed.  
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
